Domestication

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Looking out my eating area window. 

Tonight, I accompanied my daughter, to a art gallery "talk". This is where a artist talks about: their work, process, inspiration or themselves. This artist was a photographer and she was intrigued with the idea of domestication. I found the entire evening fascinating.

Her photos were of table with  food or dishes or flowers in various states of disarray.  Which to be honest, made me want to start making dishwater, wash dishes and sweep it all up. While displayed in a painterly fashion, all I could think of was: This is a mess.

Maybe that is the whole point. Most homes, if lived in, are messy. My dining room table is always in a state

Me making pizza for dinner, which once again,
has nothing what so ever to do with this post. 

of almost being cleared off, the breakfast dishes poised to hop into the dishwasher (if only they would do it themselves), and on and on.

There is a subtle push and pull between keeping a house and living in a house. The desire to have it tidy, clean and orderly versus the desire to enjoy the time, people and activities while inhabiting the house. Which often, seems mutually exclusive.

I think it is because, in a sense, we are all domesticated, whether we like it or not. What with our quiet or not so quiet rebellions, and in our attempts not to be domesticated we still find out we like clean clothes, hot meals and the garbage taken out.

So in fact, the artist has done her job. She has inspired me to think about "Domesticity".

Since I viewed her work, I have washed off the face of the kitchen cupboards, cleared off the counters and tidied up the dining room table's surface (which incidentally, just cries out for objects to rest there).